It has come to my attention that my writing seems “tired”. If that is the case lately, I sincerely apologize. Being without gainful employment for well over a year now while witnessing the 2010 Mariners, and having a really difficult time finding work and being out of school since September may be taking its toll. It’s hard to be inspired when your life consists of a lack of financial freedom, and a very quiet front from your baseball team. So I wait until things pile up to talk about, then figure out what I want to say. I am thankful that this isn’t my job; I would have been fired ages ago.

I should probably just come out and admit that I enjoy offseason gossip. I tried to avoid this realization for a while, because the concept of gossip and rumor reminded me far too much of old music message boards and my former life as a scenester. But baseball gossip and rumor is far more fun and a lot less idiotic than arguing online with faceless fools about whether or not my band uses Virus presets (we didn’t, for the record). Don’t get me started. But there are some times when baseball rumors and gossip are not so much fun, and yesterday morning on Twitter was a perfect example of when I hold myself responsible for jumping the gun.

Yesterday, Larry Stone posted this article at the Times, on whether or not Felix Hernandez should be dangled in front of what might be a somewhat desperate-after-the-“loss”-of-Cliff-Lee Yankees team. It’s a theoretical article, a piece for analysis and pondering only. But I didn’t read the article yesterday; I opened up Twitter and saw a bunch of reactions to it instead, because as an unemployed slacker, I don’t usually wake up until 10 or 11 in the morning, and that’s just sort of what I do, is check my email and Twitter first. Stone knew that the article was going to cause a bit of a panic, and it did, naturally. Next time, I’ll read the news first, gossip later. I was reading various people on Twitter talking about it pretty much all day, and then I came across a Kevin Calabro Tweet yesterday afternoon: “Taking your thoughts on Felix through the tweetosphere next! What do you think about Jack Zduriencik not interested in trading Felix?” I know Calabro’s just doing his job and trying to get people to call in and talk on talk radio. Since I was otherwise occupied, I wasn’t listening to the radio, but I sort of wish I had – I mean, what did he think the reactions were going to be? This question is like asking people to call in and tell you whether or not candy is yummy. Turns out that yet another rumor is that the Yankees may just be on Felix’s no-trade list, which you can either find hilarious or relieving. I find it both.

More gossip today includes this bit at NBC Sports, wherein we find out that radio and TV broadcaster Colin Cowherd apparently made some not-too-true comments about the Yanks’ AJ Burnett that Burnett is now publicly admonishing him for. I don’t know a whole lot of people who like Cowherd; I used to listen to him in the mornings on the way to work, but after a while he just started to sound like the Tom Leykis of sports. The sad thing is, I used to really like Tom Leykis – but after several years of listening to him, it became obvious that four (and possibly plus, by now) marriages have taken a toll on his psyche, and he just started sounding like some crazy political pundit. Cowherd strikes me the same way – sort of an opinionated jack of all trades who doesn’t like dissenting views. As a person whose job it is to drum up conversation, when you refuse to look at other people’s ideas, your relevancy should be called into question. Now, we not only have that, but flat-out inaccuracies from Cowherd about part of a baseball player’s life that is really nobody’s damn business. It’s not as if I was planning on going back to listening to Cowherd, but this is certainly reason to keep on not paying any attention to him. I’m comfortable with that decision.

More concrete and less rumor-y is this piece from Jeff Sullivan (and by links, several others) regarding Josh Lueke’s likely presence on the 2011 roster. There are some who will be offended by this move. I will not be counted in their numbers. By all reports, Lueke is solid, and he was part of the reason that the Tacoma Rainiers did so well in the PCL last year. This summer, I had debated writing a post about the controversy that surrounded Lueke over the season, but have decided to avoid it. If you want to know what my views are on this subject, feel free to come up and ask me some time, but the way that I see that situation is a little too complicated for a simple post, and it’s just not necessary to discuss it here. I’ll reserve my judgment of Lueke for his pitching performance, like Nature intended.

In non-gossip, Jimmy Jacquot was released by the Mariners today. Jacquot, if you did not know, was a catcher in the Everett Aquasox organization, and part of the championship 2010 team. With his release, I’m going to assume that they either like Steve Baron a lot more, or they’re looking to use Baron for a trade chip when we finally do the drafting thing – but since I am still pretty new to the Single A scene, don’t take my word for it. All I know is that the blogs aren’t particularly fond of Baron’s line, but Jacquot’s must have been worse. I could do some research, but I have to make some stuff for dinner, and that is the kind of hard-hitting journalism you can find here at Section331.com. Can you feel the professionalism?

He did get an invite to ST this last year, it’s just that in person he’s kinda ‘eh’. His defense is OK from what I could tell just looking (he’s no Rob Johnson, in other words), but his offense could use some work. I guess I was just sort of surprised, because I normally use USSM, ProBall, and LL’s opinions (along with the occasional stat or three) to temper my enthusiasm for what I see on the field, and if I’m not necessarily dazzled by what I see on the field, then that analysis can count greatly against the player.
Ah, I miss the days when I knew nothing and just watched the game. 😉

Pfft. Your writing is not “tired”. You’re the voice of the average fan, kind of the distallation of what you get if you talk to a random person who posts to Baker’s blog, LL and USSM. You’re fine. The team needs new life, is all. 🙂